Welcome to Part 19 of the Ultimate Guide to Server-Side Scripting series! In this session, we’ll learn how to retrieve data from your backend using GET requests — both for fetching all records and for retrieving a specific record by ID. This lesson builds directly on your previous work with POST requests, completing the read portion of the CRUD cycle.

✅ What You’ll Learn in This Video:
✔️ Setting up GET routes in Express.js
✔️ Fetching all records from a MongoDB collection using Mongoose find()
✔️ Retrieving a single record by ID using findById()
✔️ Implementing error handling for invalid or missing records
✔️ Sending structured JSON responses for frontend integration

💡 Why This Step Matters:
🔹 Reading data is one of the most essential backend operations
🔹 Forms the backbone for dashboards, listings, and data visualization pages
🔹 Teaches you how to handle requests efficiently and securely
🔹 Prepares your API for use with frontend frameworks like React, Vue, or Angular